


Forgiveness In A Blade

by orphan_account



Category: Captive Prince
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, King Damen, King Laurent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:00:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4231425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took real willpower to stand still before an enemy attacker, but he managed. His back against the wall, hands twisted into the drapes, he held still as Laurent approached him with icy fury in his eyes, his knife glinting in the moonlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgiveness In A Blade

**Author's Note:**

> What I want for the Captive Prince fandom: *chants* more fics more fics

Damen prided himself in his skills as a warrior; the spoiled prince persona had been one he'd worked hard to dispel early on in life. He feinted and dodged and attacked by instinct; shadows could have trouble catching him off guard. It was ingrained in his body to _survive, survive, survive._

It took real willpower to stand still before an enemy attacker, but he managed. His back against the wall, hands twisted into the drapes, he held still as Laurent approached him with icy fury in his eyes, his knife glinting in the moonlight. 

Under the mask of fury lay hurt and shame. Damen could see it in the way his eyes were just a bit too wide and bright. He remembered Aimeric, cold and pale on a stone floor, Jord's scathing gaze on his back.

 _You ever wonder what it would feel like to find out you'd spread for your brother's killer?_

Laurent looked beautiful, as always. He stepped closer and Damen's lack of defense made him hesitate only for a moment before the knife plunged into his gut. He curled into it, his head dropping, eyes squeezing shut. He groaned softly, making sure the guards could not hear.

_I think it would feel like this._

"What now?" Laurent's voice was soft and bitter in his ear, following him down as he slid to the floor. "Are you going to tell me how the honorable Akielons only fight on the battlefield?" His voice was ragged now, upset and quietly furious. "Was this your honorable plan, _Prince Damianos_ to come here and fuck Augustus's little brother? Peek into his palace, see how his armies fare?"

Damen swallowed. The pain in his abdomen was enough to make him want to pass out. It was a calculated wound; it promised long hours of suffering before the end. 

"I didn't—" Laurent twisted the knife, just a little. His words stumbled through a thick fog of pain. "I... None of this w-was planned." He looked up into cold, unflinching eyes and it was like appealing to ice. "Please... Please believe me. I did not ask to be a slave."

Laurent contemplated him with a flat gaze. His fingers left the hilt of the blade and came to cup the side of Damen's face, wet with his blood. 

"Don't speak to me unless you are told to." Laurent murmured, and pressed against the side of Damen's neck, his eyesight dimming almost immediately. He almost thought the next words were a memory, if not for Laurent's voice, harsh and raw in a way that it never was. "I'll have you flogged to death." 

_Good luck,_ Damen thought. He was fading, faster than he had anticipated. _I'll be dead before you can tie me to the cross._

He drifted into the darkness, letting himself take comfort in Laurent's hand against his cheek, as wrong as it was. Perhaps this would be what it took, for Laurent to forgive him.

 

*****

 

Damen awoke to the soft breeze of the ocean, salty and cool. It flowed in with the light of the morning, wafting the translucent drapes around his bed. It was a beautiful way to wake up. 

He could have believed he had moved on to the afterlife, except his side still seemed intent on killing him.

He yawned and the sound jolted the palace slave standing by his bedside, who knelt gracefully before rising attentively to his eye level. Her hair was a shade darker than Laurent's, her eyes a bit too grey. Even so, she was far too similar to him.

"Bring me a guard." murmured Damen. He stifled a groan as he sat up, the slave running off with a concerned look. 

The guard arrived, pensive and much more heavily armed than was usual. "Your majesty."

"Would you please enlighten me as to what has occurred since I was stabbed?" Damen watched the guard shift nervously. He was one of the palace's finest men. "Where is the King of Vere?"

"The _King of Vere,_ " the guard nearly sneered. "dragged you out of your royal chamber at around midnight. You were unconscious, with a single wound to the gut. He surrendered himself to the guard; we have him in a holding cell below the palace." The anger was apparent in the guard's voice and Damen was caught between being pleased by his loyalty and concerned by their potential treatment of Laurent. "If I may," the guard continued, waiting for Damen's nod. "I rather think the King of Vere didn't know how to kill a man; he must have been quite confident he'd done the job, bringing you to the medics in the way he did."

Damen's mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions; he didn't even try to work through what the guard had told him yet. "Bring him up to me, and then leave us." commanded Damen. He must have looked serious, because the guard stopped his protest halfway and left.

Laurent could kill a man from two cities away if he wished it. He hadn't brought Damen to the medics out of confidence in the fatality of the wound; he had done it to save him, for whatever twisted reason.

He looked down at the gold cuff still adorning his wrist and refused to believe it was sentiment. Laurent hated him; he'd killed his brother, lied about his identity, and then slept with him regardless. 

Damen rubbed the cuff and closed his eyes, leaning back carefully against the headboard. Even that gentle movement sent a bolt of pain through his body, prompting a quiet hiss under his breath.

"That looks like it hurts." Laurent's voice made Damen's eyes snap open. The King of Vere was standing next to his bed, leaning over Damen as if to inspect the stitches and bandaging on his bare torso. Across the room, the guard from before waited nervously by the door, leaving reluctantly when Damen nodded to him. 

He returned his gaze to Laurent, who was now looking at him with the cold, detached air he'd had when they first met. His hand suddenly moved to touch the skin above the bandages and Damen flinched, much to his amusement. 

"Don't worry," chided Laurent, his gaze predatorial. "They took away all my weapons."

Damen highly doubted Laurent needed a weapon to kill him, but the sentiment comforted him anyways. 

Laurent's hand was cold against his stomach; every now and then his nails would bite against the skin there, the sensation making Damen's breath uneven. He couldn't muster the will to bat his hands away.

Damen took a deep breath. He'd forgotten how tiresome it was, being with Veretions. It seemed as if every action they took was a step in twenty different games. "What are you doing, Laurent?"

His expression wasn't as hostile as it had been the night before when he looked up; the ice in his eyes had thawed. It left him looking oddly lost. 

"I don't know." Laurent murmured. It was so faint that Damen could have imagined it. The hand on Damen's stomach traced the line of his stitches. "If this was your plan all along, I congratulate you."

"What do you mean?" Damen tried to keep the concern out of his voice. "Are you well?"

"I'm fine." Laurent waved away the concern he'd tried to hide. "I just meant that... It appears I can't kill you."

Damen blinked. The dull throbbing in his abdomen seemed to prove otherwise, but then he caught a glimpse of Laurent's face as it turned away, embarrassed and frustrated, and he understood.

"You can't?" he started cautiously. "Or won't?"

Laurent's face swung back around and his expression was dangerous now, embarrassment thrown into the wind. He reminded Damen of that night at Ravenel now; seductive with a purpose.

His hand moved from Damen's stomach to curl around the base of his head, thumb smoothing over his cheekbone. Laurent gazed at him with eyes that were heavy and annoyed all at once. He straddled Damen's hips and Damen half expected him to press into his wound. He didn't.

"You've caught me," Laurent breathed, warm air only inches from Damen's lips. "I've gone soft for a _bed slave._

They kissed and Damen felt caught in between melting into it and throwing himself away. He did neither; holding still and pliant, Laurent moving for the both of them.

"You wait until now to act like a bed slave?" 

Damen swallowed and finally pulled back, his hands still twisted in the sheets. "Laurent—" he said between kisses, Laurent evidently set on shutting him up. "Laurent, please; tell me why you didn't kill me."

Laurent sat back reluctantly. "I told you already," He looked down at Damen's stitches again. "I don't know why. I just did it. Now," He leaned in again, pushing Damen back into the headboard. "Will you stop talking already?"

He lost track of time. Perhaps it was only minutes that they spent sharing air on his bed, a tangle of lips and limbs. It could have been hours. Damen only knew that the moment fingers brushed his hipbone, and the place where skin disappeared under fabric, he froze and pulled back, suddenly very aware of who he was, who Laurent was. Aware that outside his door perhaps a dozen guards were keeping watch; that he was quite literally in bed with his nation's sworn enemy. 

It was easy to forget all of that. Easy to cup Laurent's face and see the gold on his wrist and pretend he was only a slave, that the only thing that existed was this bed and this moment.

"You have to answer my questions now."

Laurent's voice sounded composed enough when he spoke, the touch of roughness in it barely perceptible. It tugged on Damen's willpower. 

"Fair enough." Damen murmured, hand dropping from Laurent's cheek. The shorter man rolled off of him and onto the bed, lazily stretched by Damen's side. 

Laurent's hands returned to the wound on his stomach, tracing and distracting. "Why didn't you stop me?" he asked, and his voice was almost bewildered. "You just stood there."

Damen swallowed. "I don't know." he replied, and wanted to laugh at how similarly inadequate their answers had been to one another. "I had just been thinking... Of that day in war." He forced himself at Laurent's face. "And I realized that the first thing—the very first thing—I ever did to you was hurt you terribly..." Laurent's nails were sinking into his abdomen just slightly. "And I felt as if I would do anything to make it up to you."

Laurent looked up from where his eyes had been tracing his stitches. His expression was terribly fragile; on a knifepoint between anger and forgiveness, searching Kamen for signs of deceptions. He found none.

Laurent took a deep breath. "I apologize," He looked away from Damen. "For the harm I caused you today."

"Everything is forgiven." Damen said, hoping he didn't sound too willing, too hopeful. "It is nothing compared to how I have wrong you."

"You did what you thought was your duty to your country and your father." Laurent replied, voice tight. "And you did not know me. This is the second time I have almost killed you, knowingly." His voice was almost desperately confused when he spoke again, looking at Damen as if he was the most confounding creature in the world. "How can you still stand to be in my presence?"

The breeze ruffled Laurent's hair, the sunlight turning it into pale spun gold. Damen wondered how he had managed to live all these months without him near, all those years not knowing him at all. 

"It's unlike you to ask obvious questions." Damen murmured. He found Laurent's hand on his stomach and drew it away, fingers twining. "I sometimes wonder how I can stand being away from it."


End file.
